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Dwayne B., Lawyer

Category: Criminal Law

Satisfied Customers: 29027

Experience: Numerous criminal trials ranging from traffic to murder, practicing Criminal Law for 20+ years.

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I got a DUI and the officer wrote 3rd DUI on my ticket. Thats

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I got a DUI and the officer wrote 3rd DUI on my ticket. That's what his computer said. But it was actually my 2nd DUI. Can they go back and add charges or change them after the ticket is wrote? Should I argue this in court? How can the police computer system be screwed up? This happened to 2 different people in one week. Is there anything I can do about this?

Hello and thank you for contacting Just Answer. I am an expert here and I look forward to assisting you today. If at any point any of my answers aren’t clear please don’t hesitate to ask for clarification.

They can change the charges and either make them higher or, in this type of case, lower.

This is a common mistake. The reason is that the computer systems the police officers use in their cars aren't always accurate on what is a conviction and what is an arrest. Likely it is showing one of the arrests and one of the conviction as two different charges. There are a lot of reasons that could happen all the away from a mistake in entering the data to a mistake by the officer in reading it.

You, yourself, can't argue anything, your lawyer has to do it. This will all be cleared up when the DA runs the NCIC criminal history. It will show the actual number of convictions.

The only big issue is if there is a conviction on your record which actually belongs to someone else. This is rare but it does happen. If it turns out that is the case then your lawyer can ask the DA to order copies of the records in the incorrect case and when they get them in it will show that it is another person based on pictures, fingerprints, D/O/B, etc.

There isn't any kind of civil lawsuit possible on this, assuming that the police officer didn't do it on purpose.

Thank you very much for the Positive Rating. Please come back and visit us if you have any new questions and feel free to ask for me by placing “FOR JD 1992” in the subject line or as the first words of your question and I will pick up as soon as I see it.

one more thing...in the process of them saying it was my felony 3rd dui they took my DNA. Now i am trying to get it back and my attorney says he has to file a petition. They never should have taken it in the first place so why do i have to pay an attorney to get it back? What are the steps i should be taking?

I've never done that so I'm not sure of the exact steps that would be involved. I know that it requires a petition to the court, service on the DA and any party who may have the DNA result, and a hearing but I don't know the specifics.

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